Paving her own road to success: Plymouth South's own Chelsea Cumings named most creative in advertising world

Friday

Nov 10, 2017 at 10:00 AM

Chelsea Cumings returned to Plymouth South High School to thank her former teachers and give credit to the technical studies program that helped her blossom into one of the nation’s most creative advertisers.

Rich Harbert rharbert@wickedlocal.com @richharbertOCM

PLYMOUTH – Chelsea Cumings helped organize her junior prom, but the Plymouth South student was at a conference in a pants suit, not at a ballroom in a gown, on the night of the big dance in 2005.

Cumings and a fellow marketing student spent prom weekend at a DECA conference in Florida, instead, where they pitched a campaign for dark chocolate.

It was just the start of sweet things to come for the 2006 Plymouth South graduate, who earlier this year was named by Business Insider as the second most creative advertising person under 30 in America.

Now 29, and working as an art director in Los Angeles, Cumings returned to Plymouth South last week to thank her former teachers and the technical studies program that allowed her to blossom into one of the nation’s most creative advertisers.

Speaking at the school’s annual technical studies advisory dinner, Cumings said the technical studies program allowed her to choose a creative path that ultimately helped her find what she most loves to do.

“The school offered me an education that was much more tailored to my interests and my strengths. They allowed me to take both marketing and graphic design classes within the tech program because I knew both were of interest to me. By junior year, they also allowed me to replace study hall with an extra art class,” Cumings said.

“They truly worked with me. The system was tailored to all of my interests and all of these things made my portfolio stronger, which ultimately helped me to get into college. I think that path would have been very different if I hadn’t gone to a school with a vocational program like this one. I feel very fortunate.”

Cumings said she was never a good test-taker and that math was always a struggle, but luckily she was allowed to improve her grades with special projects.

“I loved special projects. Anything that involved a trifold, I was in heaven. If we were given the option of making a film instead of writing a paper, I was all over it. I love to tell stories visually in creative ways. I came to realize later that this is exactly what happens in advertising,” she said.

Cumings went to the School of Visual Arts in New York City and majored in graphic arts and advertising. She landed a job in advertising before finishing school and worked on campaigns for several nationally recognized clients, including Campbell’s soup, Land Rover and Virgin Airlines.

Within six months of graduation, she was filming her first major commercial for LG telephones in London.

She moved from a big to a medium to now a small agency, going from New York to Miami to Los Angeles.

She won acclaim for emotionally touching campaigns for Expedia that highlighted the travel agency’s partnership with St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.

Cumings recently completed a commercial for the sale of Batman Lego products at Target stores. The animated piece exposed Cumings to a different style of commercial, as each three-second segment of the animation took artists three hours to produce.

Cumings was not able to go into any detail about her latest project, but said it is sure to get some attention over the winter. She is currently working on a rebranding of Diet Coke. “So no pressure there,” she joked. The commercials will premiere in January.

Doris Grant, head of the Marketing Department at Plymouth South, said Cumings paved the road to her own success by capitalizing on her drive, passion, creativity, wisdom and education.

“Chelsea had such a high level of self awareness that it allowed her to discover her talent, passion, and unique ability at a very young age,” Grant said. “Plymouth South High School has tremendous resources, and Chelsea possessed the wisdom to take advantage of these, which helped pave the road to her success. I would be remiss if I didn't mention her drive that was apparent as a freshman but grew stronger with age. Last but not least, I would like to mention her extreme kindness. It truly is one of her attributes. Maybe we can't all be as brilliantly creative but we could take a lesson from her playbook on success and be kind.”

Cumings credited Plymouth South's program and Grant and her other teachers with setting her up for success.

“It allowed me to focus my interests early on, so by the time I was in college I was able to start honing my interests and skills as a designer and art director, rather than having my first two years deciding what I wanted to do,” Cumings said. “I feel so lucky to have attended Plymouth South High School. The vocational school, DECA and my amazing teachers helped prepare me early on for what would eventually be a long career in advertising, and I feel like I’m just getting started.”

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